Crazy Cat Lady
by buduica
Summary: Yet another origin story for Catwoman. Blame it on the lack of universal health care.


**Crazy Cat Lady**  
_by aishuu_

* * *

The day Selina Kyle starts to officially go insane, she decides she's going to at least do it in style.

Her moods have been see-sawing worse than a playground full of first graders. At first she thinks it's something hormonal or maybe she is pregnant (though it would have to be an immaculate conception since she hasn't had sex in three years). But a couple of visits to the doctors reveal it's all in her head, and she's soon sent to a psychiatrist and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

She's not quite sure it's the right diagnosis, but the doctor writes her a prescription for a couple of pills a day, and suddenly she's feeling much more balanced and in control of herself. She's doing so well that she's on the path to a promotion, and she knows the drugs have everything to do with her stability.

Then her company gets rid of her medical insurance as a way of "managing costs" and Selina realizes she's screwed. There's no way she can afford the $800 a month for her scripts, and without them she's going to lose what little sanity she has left.

Like the well-trained administrative assistant she is, Selina is prepared to cope with the impending crisis by organizing what she knows, and figuring out what to do. It might not be the best solution, but inaction is worse than no action at all.

Selina spends a couple of hours that evening seated at her small breakfast nook (the only place in her studio apartment where she has room to use her laptop), trying to crunch the numbers. Try as she might, she can't squeeze her already tight budget enough to afford her medications.

That leaves her with the unwelcomed truth that she is going to lose her mind - and going crazy in Gotham leads to bad, bad things. Arkham Asylum is a horrible place to call home, but it's a lot more attractive than ending up a resident of the Narrows. Neither is particularly desirable.

There has to be some happy medium.

Selina taps her fingers against the side of her laptop for a moment before hesitantly pulling up _The Gotham Post's_ website. Scanning through it, she sees the same old news – corruption in City Hall, an editorial railing against the corruption in the police department, a murder-suicide, and speculation on the Batman.

She can't help smiling at the thought. At least she's not crazy enough to dress like a flying rodent and embrace vigilante justice. Talk about thankless work. If a person is going to dress like a lunatic, there should be some reward in it.

The pieces slide together perfectly in her head, and she has a crazy, crazy plan. She was raised to be a good girl, but maybe it's time to act out. Her problem is she's short of money, so why not liberate some while dressed in costume? It could be a lot of fun, and it's better than curling up and accepting her fate as a lunatic.

The Penguin seems fond of henchwenches. Maybe he has an opening.

It takes her thirty seconds to reject that idea. Selina's too pissed off at The Man to want to be anyone's flunky. She suffers through that at work all day, and if she's going to become a criminal, she's going to do it on her own terms. Selina is going to be a solo act. Maybe the feminists will support her, since there's no female criminals on the scene, standing on their own.

She squishes the nagging voice of her conscience ruthlessly. The system has let her down, so she's perfectly justified in evening the scorecard in her favor.

That decided, she starts musing on her costume. All the really successful Gotham criminals have a motif, and she wants hers to be fabulous. Selina needs to figure out what her style is going to be.

"What do you think I should do, Whiskers?" she asks, looking at the cat sitting in her lap.

Whiskers just purrs, before nudging her hand to encourage scratching behind his ears.

She laughs, knowing the answer is obvious. Then she sighs, since it's going to take a lot of work to prepare an adequate entry into Gotham's nightlife. She's fit enough, but "fit enough" is in no way going to be good enough to justify wearing a catsuit.

Selina Kyle might be going nuts, but she's going to change the rep of "Crazy Cat Lady" into something sexy while she's at it.


End file.
